6 ms·

"Fair enough. Since this was our first OSS project, we didn’t realize at first. We’ve now revised it. Thanks for your contribution." We didn't notice that we c

"Fair enough. Since this was our first OSS project, we didn’t realize at first. We’ve now revised it. Thanks for your contribution." We didn't notice that we copied your codebase, changed the name then pretended to have built it in four days? Good grief.

gpderetta 1y ago
"we are sorry we got caught"
- reactordev 1y ago
  I would be running for the hills if I were YC. This is the kind of attitude that ends up in lawsuits.
  - gryfft 1y ago
    I thought tech companies were supposed to move fast and break stuff.
    - whilenot-dev 1y ago
      I think that phrase was coined in an era when the tech sector moved so fast that the prevailing law couldn't keep up. It caught up somewhat, but obviously there's still much leeway for improvement. Break all the wrong habits, rigid conventions and old traditions you want, just play along with the governing laws.
      - Nextgrid 1y ago
        > the tech sector moved so fast that the prevailing law couldn't keep up That's an extremely charitable interpretation. A more realistic interpretation is that the law was up to date, just that enforcement couldn't keep up because 1) nobody expected such a brazen level of breaking the law and 2) justice doesn't really apply when you have enough capital.
        whilenot-dev 1y ago
        > A more realistic interpretation is that the law was up to date While I wouldn't disagree with your sentiment, just keep in mind that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) got implemented 2018.
        Nextgrid 1y ago
        I was thinking more about regulations around taxis, short-term rentals, etc for example. As an aside, GDPR enforcement is so lacking (even today) it doesn't register on anyone's radar beyond those that fear-monger about it or sell snake oil to pseudo-comply with it. But even then, keep in mind most of what the GDPR has was already part of many countries' own legislation, and things like spyware were illegal even in the US (but again laws don't apply if you are a company and have enough capital).
        Boldened15 1y ago
        > As an aside, GDPR enforcement is so lacking (even today) it doesn't register on anyone's radar That’s not really true, every app offers some version of “Download your data” these days as a result of GDPR.
        Jon_Lowtek 1y ago
        Little known fact: GDPR replaced the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC) from 1995 which itself replaced the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data, written in 1981. Now if you compare these three, there is enough details to get an undergrads degree in law, but on the high level the tenor did not change much. Those who were struggling in 2018 to meet GDPR criteria before the grace period of two years ended were most likely not struggling with details, but in blatant violation of almost 40 year old rules. Well one of the details probably mattered: the fines went up considerably.
        aleph_minus_one 1y ago
        > Those who were struggling in 2018 to meet GDPR criteria before the grace period of two years ended were most likely not struggling with details, but in blatant violation of almost 40 year old rules. At least in Germany at the time of GDPR, the startups (and also bigger companies) were struggling with the insane amount of compliance requirements, and the uncertainty how to actually interpret these legal requirements also in terms of federal law. In other words: these (German) companies (and startups) clearly obeyed the spirit of these, as you say, 40 year old laws, but struggled hard with the formal red-tape requirements of GDPR.
      - whoisthemachine 1y ago
        Its original intended meaning was sometimes breaking your social website, not laws.
        diggan 1y ago
        As far as I understood the original meaning, it was about "not being too careful", and err on the side of breaking things, in the name of moving forward faster. It ended up meaning something else, but back then this is how I understood it.
      - avisser 1y ago
        IMO that phrase came about when old tech companies (the IBMs of the world) had * waterfall * design up-front * source control systems that * defaulted all files to read-only * required you to "check-out" files, potentially locking other devs out from editing them [1] * probably didn't have unit tests so "deploying to prod" meant "doing a full QA pass, done by human beings" * there was no CI/CD (We had "Build Engineers") In this context, pushing a change to SVN/git/hg, having tests run automatically, then having CI/CD push new code to production, all as a side-effect of one engineer push a button? That was moving fast, and occasionally, breaking the whole website. But we got better tests, better CI/CD, metrics, green/blue, ... We learned it was unequivocally better than the old way. [1] Reserved Checkouts: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/clearcase/11.0.0?topic=ucm-checkout#ariaid-title4 https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/clearcase/11.0.0?topic=ucm-check...
    - ksec 1y ago
      > I thought tech companies were supposed to move fast and break stuff. This mentality is relatively new. Or more like invented by Facebook and got marketed the heck by PRs and marketing firms. And now we have people who code before they think.
      - gryfft 1y ago
        > And now we have people who code before they think. Thanks to coding agents, now we can have engineers who do neither
  - Nextgrid 1y ago
    YC is the company that (to this day!) has Yotta - a borderline scam to take advantage of financially-illiterate people - on their website after the whole thing has completely blown up and most customers lost their savings: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/yotta https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/yotta Oh, and now they have their own rendition of the "Aviator" game often advertised by unregulated Eastern-European online casinos: https://members.withyotta.com/moonshot/ https://members.withyotta.com/moonshot/. You can't make this shit up! I wrote off YC after this. Maybe early on it was a mark of quality and good due-diligence, but now I'd argue it's the outright opposite - if it's funded by YC, buyer beware.
    - mathiaspoint 1y ago
      Did you not understand what YC was? They're essentially an investment bank that doesn't accept new clients. They make money, they're not a charity. Quality only matters insofar as it drives sales and doesn't create liabilities.
      - Nextgrid 1y ago
        > doesn't create liabilities But you'd think that would include doing sufficient due-diligence and steering their companies away from scams or unethical activities no?
      - qualeed 1y ago
        >They make money, they're not a charity. I know it can be shocking to some people to learn this, but you can make money ethically.
        Smeevy 1y ago
        Unfortunately, that's not how someone gets that third comma in their net worth. The billionaires that so much of American society worship didn't make all of that money by being smart, kind, honest, or ethical. They made it by being dishonest, morally flexible, and ruthless. Especially now, business ethics are for the "little people." The modern billionaire class no longer cares about even keeping up the appearance of decency.
  - weird-eye-issue 1y ago
    So what? YC doesn't invest that much into any individual company and that's the most they would lose in the worst case scenario. So even if they behave badly they have a capped risk but unlimited upside They're far more likely to just fail for other reasons, lawsuit is not going to happen regardless
  - immibis 1y ago
    Doesn't matter if you already made your money. And YC-funded companies are not YC. This is how business has always worked since the dawn of capitalism. All hugely successful businesses do illegal things.
- whoisthemachine 1y ago
  "In our next OSS project we will steal more carefully"
MichaelZuo 1y ago
It does seem really shady to not even offer a sincere apology.
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago
  > It does seem really shady to not even offer a sincere apology. At least they attempted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44461271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44461271
taytus 1y ago
This is the type of shit YC invest in? It has been like this for a long while. So fucking shady.
- pyman 1y ago
  I blame Zuk. His slogan was "Move fast and break laws", later changed to "things" by his lawyers.
  - taytus 1y ago
    You can, but you'd be wrong.
pxc 1y ago
This isn't just a license compliance issue! Even if it were compliant with the license, like if the license has been a permissive license with no attribution requirement, this is still sleazy and plagiaristic behavior. Sometimes (often!) what is right exceeds the legal bare minimum.

gpderetta 1y ago

"we are sorry we got caught"

reactordev 1y ago
I would be running for the hills if I were YC. This is the kind of attitude that ends up in lawsuits.
- gryfft 1y ago
  I thought tech companies were supposed to move fast and break stuff.
  - whilenot-dev 1y ago
    I think that phrase was coined in an era when the tech sector moved so fast that the prevailing law couldn't keep up. It caught up somewhat, but obviously there's still much leeway for improvement. Break all the wrong habits, rigid conventions and old traditions you want, just play along with the governing laws.
    - Nextgrid 1y ago
      > the tech sector moved so fast that the prevailing law couldn't keep up That's an extremely charitable interpretation. A more realistic interpretation is that the law was up to date, just that enforcement couldn't keep up because 1) nobody expected such a brazen level of breaking the law and 2) justice doesn't really apply when you have enough capital.
      - whilenot-dev 1y ago
        > A more realistic interpretation is that the law was up to date While I wouldn't disagree with your sentiment, just keep in mind that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) got implemented 2018.
        Nextgrid 1y ago
        I was thinking more about regulations around taxis, short-term rentals, etc for example. As an aside, GDPR enforcement is so lacking (even today) it doesn't register on anyone's radar beyond those that fear-monger about it or sell snake oil to pseudo-comply with it. But even then, keep in mind most of what the GDPR has was already part of many countries' own legislation, and things like spyware were illegal even in the US (but again laws don't apply if you are a company and have enough capital).
        Boldened15 1y ago
        > As an aside, GDPR enforcement is so lacking (even today) it doesn't register on anyone's radar That’s not really true, every app offers some version of “Download your data” these days as a result of GDPR.
        Jon_Lowtek 1y ago
        Little known fact: GDPR replaced the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC) from 1995 which itself replaced the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data, written in 1981. Now if you compare these three, there is enough details to get an undergrads degree in law, but on the high level the tenor did not change much. Those who were struggling in 2018 to meet GDPR criteria before the grace period of two years ended were most likely not struggling with details, but in blatant violation of almost 40 year old rules. Well one of the details probably mattered: the fines went up considerably.
        aleph_minus_one 1y ago
        > Those who were struggling in 2018 to meet GDPR criteria before the grace period of two years ended were most likely not struggling with details, but in blatant violation of almost 40 year old rules. At least in Germany at the time of GDPR, the startups (and also bigger companies) were struggling with the insane amount of compliance requirements, and the uncertainty how to actually interpret these legal requirements also in terms of federal law. In other words: these (German) companies (and startups) clearly obeyed the spirit of these, as you say, 40 year old laws, but struggled hard with the formal red-tape requirements of GDPR.
    - whoisthemachine 1y ago
      Its original intended meaning was sometimes breaking your social website, not laws.
      - diggan 1y ago
        As far as I understood the original meaning, it was about "not being too careful", and err on the side of breaking things, in the name of moving forward faster. It ended up meaning something else, but back then this is how I understood it.
    - avisser 1y ago
      IMO that phrase came about when old tech companies (the IBMs of the world) had * waterfall * design up-front * source control systems that * defaulted all files to read-only * required you to "check-out" files, potentially locking other devs out from editing them [1] * probably didn't have unit tests so "deploying to prod" meant "doing a full QA pass, done by human beings" * there was no CI/CD (We had "Build Engineers") In this context, pushing a change to SVN/git/hg, having tests run automatically, then having CI/CD push new code to production, all as a side-effect of one engineer push a button? That was moving fast, and occasionally, breaking the whole website. But we got better tests, better CI/CD, metrics, green/blue, ... We learned it was unequivocally better than the old way. [1] Reserved Checkouts: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/clearcase/11.0.0?topic=ucm-checkout#ariaid-title4 https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/clearcase/11.0.0?topic=ucm-check...
  - ksec 1y ago
    > I thought tech companies were supposed to move fast and break stuff. This mentality is relatively new. Or more like invented by Facebook and got marketed the heck by PRs and marketing firms. And now we have people who code before they think.
    - gryfft 1y ago
      > And now we have people who code before they think. Thanks to coding agents, now we can have engineers who do neither
- Nextgrid 1y ago
  YC is the company that (to this day!) has Yotta - a borderline scam to take advantage of financially-illiterate people - on their website after the whole thing has completely blown up and most customers lost their savings: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/yotta https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/yotta Oh, and now they have their own rendition of the "Aviator" game often advertised by unregulated Eastern-European online casinos: https://members.withyotta.com/moonshot/ https://members.withyotta.com/moonshot/. You can't make this shit up! I wrote off YC after this. Maybe early on it was a mark of quality and good due-diligence, but now I'd argue it's the outright opposite - if it's funded by YC, buyer beware.
  - mathiaspoint 1y ago
    Did you not understand what YC was? They're essentially an investment bank that doesn't accept new clients. They make money, they're not a charity. Quality only matters insofar as it drives sales and doesn't create liabilities.
    - Nextgrid 1y ago
      > doesn't create liabilities But you'd think that would include doing sufficient due-diligence and steering their companies away from scams or unethical activities no?
    - qualeed 1y ago
      >They make money, they're not a charity. I know it can be shocking to some people to learn this, but you can make money ethically.
      - Smeevy 1y ago
        Unfortunately, that's not how someone gets that third comma in their net worth. The billionaires that so much of American society worship didn't make all of that money by being smart, kind, honest, or ethical. They made it by being dishonest, morally flexible, and ruthless. Especially now, business ethics are for the "little people." The modern billionaire class no longer cares about even keeping up the appearance of decency.
- weird-eye-issue 1y ago
  So what? YC doesn't invest that much into any individual company and that's the most they would lose in the worst case scenario. So even if they behave badly they have a capped risk but unlimited upside They're far more likely to just fail for other reasons, lawsuit is not going to happen regardless
- immibis 1y ago
  Doesn't matter if you already made your money. And YC-funded companies are not YC. This is how business has always worked since the dawn of capitalism. All hugely successful businesses do illegal things.
whoisthemachine 1y ago
"In our next OSS project we will steal more carefully"

MichaelZuo 1y ago

It does seem really shady to not even offer a sincere apology.

aleph_minus_one 1y ago
> It does seem really shady to not even offer a sincere apology. At least they attempted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44461271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44461271

taytus 1y ago

This is the type of shit YC invest in? It has been like this for a long while. So fucking shady.

pyman 1y ago
I blame Zuk. His slogan was "Move fast and break laws", later changed to "things" by his lawyers.
- taytus 1y ago
  You can, but you'd be wrong.

pxc 1y ago

This isn't just a license compliance issue! Even if it were compliant with the license, like if the license has been a permissive license with no attribution requirement, this is still sleazy and plagiaristic behavior. Sometimes (often!) what is right exceeds the legal bare minimum.